From Flight 93. Phone conversations between Tom Burnett and his wife Deena
Transcript of Tom's Last Calls to Deena.
> 6:27 a.m.( pacific time) First cell phone call from Tom to Deena
>
> Deena: Hello
> Tom: Deena
> Deena: Tom, are you O.K.?
> Tom: No, I’m not. I’m on an airplane that has been hijacked.
> Deena: Hijacked?
> Tom: Yes, They just knifed a guy.
> Deena: A passenger?
> Tom: Yes.
> Deena: Where are you? Are you in the air?
> Tom: Yes, yes, just listen. Our airplane has been hijacked. It’s United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco. We are in the air. The hijackers have already knifed a guy, one of them has a gun, they are telling us there is a bomb on board, please call the authorities. He hung up.
>
> 6:31 Deena calls 911
> 6:34 The phone rang in on call waiting, Tom’s second cell phone call.
>
> Deena: Hello
> Tom: They’re in the cockpit. The guy they knifed is dead.
> Deena: He’s dead?
> Tom: Yes. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t get a pulse.
> Deena: Tom, they are hijacking planes all up and down the east coast. They are taking them and hitting designated targets. They’ve already hit both towers of the World Trade Center.
> Tom: They’re talking about crashing this plane. (a pause) Oh my God.
> It’s a suicide mission…(he then tells people sitting around him)
> Deena: Who are you talking to?
> Tom: My seatmate. Do you know which airline is involved?
> Deena: No, they don’t know if they’re commercial airlines or not. The newsreporters are speculating cargo planes, private planes and commercial. No one knows.
> Tom: How many planes are there?
> Deena: They’re not sure, at least three. Maybe more.
> Tom: O.K….O.K….Do you know who is involved?
> Deena: No.
> Tom: We’re turning back toward New York. We’re going back to the World Trade Center. No, wait, we’re turning back the other way. We’re going south.
> Deena: What do you see?
> Tom: Just a minute, I’m looking. I don’t see anything, we’re over a rural area. It’s just fields. I’ve gotta go.
>
> 6:45 a.m. Third cell phone call from Tom to Deena
>
> Tom: Deena
> Deena: Tom, you’re O.K. (I thought at this point he had just survived the Pentagon plane crash).
> Tom: No, I’m not.
> Deena: They just hit the Pentagon.
> Tom: (tells people sitting around him “They just hit the Pentagon.”)
> Tom: O.K….O.K. What else can you tell me?
> Deena: They think five airplanes have been hijacked. One is still on the ground. They believe all of them are commercial planes. I haven’t heard them say which airline, but all of them have originated on the east coast.
> Tom: Do you know who is involved?
> Deena: No
> Tom: What is the probability of their having a bomb on board? I don’t think they have one. I think they’re just telling us that for crowd control.
> Deena: A plane can survive a bomb if it’s in the right place.
> Tom: Did you call the authorities?
> Deena: Yes, they didn’t know anything about your plane.
> Tom: They’re talking about crashing this plane into the ground. We have to do something. I’m putting a plan together.
> Deena: Who’s helping you?
> Tom: Different people. Several people. There’s a group of us. Don’t worry. I’ll call you back.
>
> 6:54 a.m. Fourth cell phone call to Tom to Deena
>
> Deena: Tom?
> Tom: Hi. Anything new?
> Deena: No
> Tom: Where are the kids?
> Deena: They’re fine. They’re sitting at the table having breakfast. They’re asking to talk to you.
> Tom: Tell them I’ll talk to them later.
> Deena: I called your parents. They know your plane has been hijacked.
> Tom: Oh…you shouldn’t have worried them. How are they doing?
> Deena: They’re O.K.. Mary and Martha are with them.
> Tom: Good.
>
> (a long quiet pause)
>
> Tom: We’re waiting until we’re over a rural area. We’re going to take back the airplane.
> Deena: No! Sit down, be still, be quiet, and don’t draw attention to yourself! (The exact words taught to me by Delta Airlines Flight Attendant Training).
> Tom: Deena! If they’re going to crash this plane into the ground, we’re going to have do something!
> Deena: What about the authorities?
> Tom: We can’t wait for the authorities. I don’t know what they could do anyway.
> It’s up to us. I think we can do it.
> Deena: What do you want me to do?
> Tom: Pray, Deena, just pray.
>
> (after a long pause)
>
> Deena: I love you.
> Tom: Don’t worry, we’re going to do something...

quote:

Tom: Don’t worry, we’re going to do something...

Citizen Soldier

I don't usually discuss what I do for a living, but since it has been 25 years, I can tell you about that day. I was a year and days graduated from college and I was responsible for calculating probability of kill between weapons and targets using an old FORTRAN code called PDAM (Point Burst Damage Assessment Model). On September 11, 2001, I was running late for work. I forget why but anyway, I got a call from a buddy that told me about the first plane. I arrived at work and went inside just in time to see the second plane impact tower two. A group of us stayed in that room and watched news coverage for a long while. Later in the day, our boss asked everyone to assemble in the conference room. I remember his words nearly exact: "We are at war and our Air Force customer has already given us action items. The boys at Hurlburt are lacing up their boots and they need us to begin weaponeering to support JTAC." Weaponeering is picking the right weapon, the right load out and right delivery conditions to prosecute a target. The Air Force was moving fast, heck all of DoD was moving very fast. I felt a new passion about my work. Over the next months, the weaponeering requests were coming faster than we could do the analysis. The Air Force was dropping anything and everything. Sometimes we just used judgement. There were some interesting problems we needed to solve. For example, pilots were noticing squirters run away from the targets they were prosecuting. Pilots like to hit what they are shooting at and sometimes you gain more lethal effects by missing the target. To test this, the Air Force and Navy got together and decided to do live fire testing. At Eglin, we purchased 10 preowned Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks and placed weapons in varying positions around them to gather lethality data. A lot of the ground crew were complaining that these trucks were nicer than what they were driving. The Navy on the other hand purchased brand new Ford F-350 trucks. These things still had the plastic on the seats when the engineers turned them into remote controlled targets. I asked why they chose those trucks and the answer was that they could be obtained fast. We then sent those brand new trucks roaring down a dirt road and did live drops from airplanes. For you Marines out there, a Marine in a Harrier was the best out of a trio of Air Force, Marine, and Navy pilots.
So that's my story of the day and the early months afterwards. These days, I like to go to a local fire house where they have a bell ceremony and I drop a few bucks in the boot.

I was at my desk in NJ, an employee came in and told us what he'd heard on the radio in his delivery truck. That employee is one of my best friends, retired law enforcement, that was just doing deliveries for some extra cash. Sitting across from me was a fellow that had worked with me in two companies, over 18 years, he had a small radio and we started listening. He had a niece and nephew who both worked in the WTC, it was a long day. It turned out that his nephew was killed, his niece was just getting to the Towers when the first plane hit and survived.

Several of my friends, acquaintances in public service volunteered to work at the scene. A few years ago I met up with a couple from NY, he's a retired NYC policeman, his job was body recovery. On the anniversary he goes to schools and presents a program on the event, does a wonderful job from what I've read.

I was a Battle Staff member on duty as the Emergency Action Controller at the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NORAD) at the former Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome NY. We were preparing to begin a NORAD-wide exercise when the first plane hit the tower.
We were the folks that scrambled fighter jets from Otis ANG Base and Langley AFB--too late.
I spent the next five years training and evaluating newly-gained fighter units for the NORAD mission.

My wife and I were born, raised got married and bought our first home on the Jersey Shore about 45 minutes south of New York City.
We were both volunteer first responders. I was a volunteer Firefighter and she was on the volunteer first aid squad. I was also a paid part time instructor with the county Fire Academy.
My full time job, I was a service manager for a fire protection company, needless to say our lived revolved around helping people.

In the summer of 1999 we had had enough of living in New Jersey and moved to Florida.

On September 11th 2001 I was working for the Walt Disney Company. I was working the 7am to 3:30 pm shift.
I remember getting up around 5:30am and watching the New York city news on my satellite dish and that the weather for a fall day was sunny and clear.
I got to the office a little bit before 7, we had our morning meeting and then off to my location.

At some point my wife left me a voicemail on my work phone(this was before cell phones are what they are today) about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. My thought, it was a nice day in New York how could a plane hit the building.
A little while later I check my work voicemail and my wife leaves me another message another plane hit the other building.

At this point I go in the back office to find out what is going on and everyone is in the conference room watching the TV.

The next voicemail was my wife letting me know they were evacuating her building in downtown Orland and she was on her way home.

When I was done with my shift I went back to our office to find everyone in the conference room watching the TV. Some of the people I worked with did not have a scale of the size of what happened. Most had never been to the World Trade Center so it was difficult for them to understand the size of the area involved.

That day was my Friday so I spent the next two day glued to the TV.

At some point I tried several times to call my old job back in New Jersey. I was a service manager for a fire protection company and friend of the company worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the World Trade Center. I finely got through and found out he was okay.

Talking to my parents I also found out that a family member was missing, he was a Paramedic. He was eventually found and was okay.
Another family member was on the job with the FDNY and was also accounted for and okay. We lost a lot of brother Firefighters that day along with all the others lost in NY, PA and the Pentagon, then the war.

Because the government shut down the airlines a lot of people were stuck in central Florida.
When the airlines started flying again central Florida emptied out and it stayed that way for a long while.

I was in MI after attending my dads wedding, I had just gotten coffee and sat down in the living room. My son who was 7 at the time was channel surfing for cartoons and I saw the towers on a channel, one had already been hit. I had to yell at him to give me the remote.

Watched the second one hit. I forget the timing but also the one that hit the Pentagon (there wasn't any footage of that for a day or two it seemed) and PA crash.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the second hit and really couldn't believe my eyes when they came crashing down. I did shed a few tears in anger

I will never forget it.

Got out of shower turned on TV. Got to work, watched lobby TV occasionally then back to work to try and get something done that day. Hard to focus indeed. Strange there are kids born to today where 9/11 is as far back for them as Pearl Harbor was when I was born.

I was sitting in the same room and same chair I am now, in my home office about 7.6 miles from the Pentagon. Mrs. A's mom had called to tell me to turn on the TV and I was listening to the broadcast. I actually heard the flight hit the Pentagon through my open window, confirmed a few minutes later by the news report. My wife was working at that time in Rosslyn VA, in a building right next to the Potomac, and I had a few anxious moments before finding out she was OK. Yes, I remember that day, and those following very well indeed.

Kudos and thanks to the many heroes who stepped up to rescue victims, and those who felt obliged to join the GWOT (a war that is far from over, IMO). Many Americans woke up that day, it is shameful that there are still so many that refuse to face the reality of the world that we are in.

I was active duty Air Force, having arrived at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona, from Ramstein AB, Germany, in July 2001. I was driving into work when I heard the report of a plane hitting a building on the radio and I remember thinking “What kind of a dumbass pilot can’t miss a building?” But by the time I got into the work center we were all monitoring the situation. By lunchtime we went on 24-hour ops (12-hr shifts) and I went home to come back at 1800 hrs for the night shift. We stayed on 24-hour ops through November.

Coincidentally, we had just moved into our new home in early August. In late August, we had ordered about 13 cubic yards (about 26-32 tons) of decorative gravel (3/4” decomposed granite) to landscape the backyard and side yards, which were just dirt; it was delivered the morning of 11 Sep and dumped into 2 huge piles on the street in front of our house (normal practice). When I got back home to rest up to start the night shift my wife and I started to spread the rock, but on the following 5 or 6 days several of our new neighbors came and helped my wife spread the rest of the rock. They knew I was in the Air Force and I believe it was a way for them to “support the military” even if it was only on a personal level. I would get up in the afternoon to help for a little bit before going into work the night shift, but it was really my wife and a bunch of our neighbors that did 99% of the work. There were little kids with toy wheelbarrows helping, and husbands and wives. Their generosity of time and sweat made us feel welcome to the neighborhood despite the terrible tragedy that inspired it. We had some really good friends and neighbors for several years after that.

The whole country came together after that terrible day, regardless of party affiliation; that’s something I really miss. Of course, it was so very sad that it took losing over 3,000 of our fellow citizens to bring us together as a nation, and sadder still how far we’ve fractured as a population in the 25 years since.

We must never forget that horrific day; and we must teach our younger generations the truth about what/how/why it happened so that it never happens again.

Ironic, I guess, that my post should follow SigFan’s. Para made a similar request for stories of 9/11 (right after the attacks, I guess) and there were several pages of them. SigFan’s arrival in Tucson and new neighbors pitching in to help his wife with the xeriscaping is one story I remember distinctly. Another from a Forum member stationed at Offutt AFB. Another from someone who worked for True Temper Tool Company, and of course, one or two from members with very close ties to NYC and the WTC.

I posted a story myself about driving up to Steamboat Springs from Rifle, Colorado leaving in the predawn hours for an early morning start to a training session. I listened to the story of the terrorist attacks unfold on a nearly vacant highway as the sun rose.

Thanks, as always, for the community you’ve created here, para. God Bless you and my brothers and sisters here in the Forum.

ETA: I now know that para called for Forum members to tell our stories of 9/11 on the 20th anniversary of the attack.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TMats,

As the Operation’s Officer, I was in my stateroom when I received a call I was needed in the Cruiser’s Signal Exploitation Space immediately.

We were sailing between Hawaii and San Diego when the word initially came out over the “Purple” communication networks. Shortly thereafter I was in the Combat Information Center. DEFCON changes, Air Defense assignments for the Continental United States West Coast, and surge deployments followed.

A societal and cultural war of a thousand plus years persists.

Godspeed and Good Hunting, Always

I've shared my 911 story here before.

I was on active duty, deployed at the time.

I had been married for 75 days, we married quickly, 2 days before I deployed. My bride was to join me in Germany after my deployment for a honeymoon across Europe.

The events that followed changed my life. No honeymoon, no separation from the USAF (I had less than 1 year left on my enlistment, and was interviewing with LE agencies in my home state), the rest of my twenties and thirties would be occupied with the defense of our nation, home and abroad.

My life was never the same. Some good, some bad. We should remember. We should never forget.

At work in a auto dealership parts department.

Mornings were always a three ring circus between techs, retail customers and phone calls from outside shops. Then toss in breaking down and checking in parts received from the PDC, getting our delivery driver loaded and on the road.

First plane that hit, like others figured it was a private plane. One of the countermen had one of those portable b/w TV Radio combinations in his trunk and went to get it. At this point everything and everybody was fixed on the tv in the customer lounge, well except us in parts.

When the second plane hit and the other stories started coming in it was surreal. Wondering if Detroit would be the next target.

So eerie that night, nothing in the sky except military jets. So quiet despite being in the tri county area. Almost no traffic on the streets. While we were about a mile and a half one way from I-96 and about the same from M-5 highway those were almost devoid of noise that we could usually hear.

As some of you know at that time I was also working part time in a H-D dealership. The approaching weekend was the new model unveiling of the 2002 Harley Davidson product lineup, IIRC was September 12th. I used to have one of the introduction banners but the plastic started to crumble on my garage wall.

Very somber, we had two retired DPD officers on staff and many of our customers were active LEO’s. They were “wired”, constantly on edge.

The other side of the coin, a couple of our techs were 1%ers, both them and our 1%er customers, nobody was taking anything for granted or business as usual.

My office was just east of the Pittsburgh airport and we sat directly on the approach path. During boring conference calls I would gaze out the window at the endless train of jets coming in to land. It was really weird that afternoon and in the days after when the planes stopped coming. Oddly one of my more vivid memories of the event.

I worked at Dunbar Armored as the Firearms Instructor for the Midwest region.
I did a route daily called the high value bank cleanout and Air Courier route when I was not doing training.
My partner and I would go to the largest banks in Chicago; Chase, BOA, Northern Trust, Harris (BOM), and pick-up all the cash they needed shipped to all there branch locations through out the Midwest.
We would then bring the cash back to our home base in Chicago, and then take valuables like jewelry and securities to Ohare and load them on a UPS plane, guard the plane and follow it to the runway and wait for it to take off. We would then wait about 15 minutes until there was a call back from the plane stating it would not be returning to Ohare.

On Sept 11, I got a call earlier in the day asking me to come in earlier than my normal 3pm start.
I knew about 9/11 happenings but didn't know any kind of details.
As I drove to work I heard on the radio that rumors of a plane headed to Chicago and possibly taking out the Sears Tower were circulating.
When I arrived at work I was told that my normal route was not in effect today. The Chicago Loop was for all purposes closed. I was told instead, We needed to go to BOA and pick-up some cash that was to be delivered to a Company located in the Sears Tower. The employees of that Company would not be able to cash there pay checks at banks because they were all shut down, so they wanted to be able to supply there employees pay checks in cash that day.
I remember looking at my partner, we did not even need to talk what we telegraphed to each other on our faces. You want us to go to a major bank in downtown Chicago, pick-up a shit load of cash, then deliver it to the underground loading dock at the Sears Tower and take it to the floor this Company was located at. All while constant reports of a plane headed to take out the Sears Tower were circulating. I remember the drive underground at the Sears Tower while headed to the loading docks, and thinking, "I sure don't want to be here if this building gets hit".

I will never forget arriving in Downtown Chicago and how desolate it was, nobody on the streets except Chicago Police and our large Armored Truck. It was like a disaster movie set.

After we finished our task we all went home. I live only a few miles from O'Hare Airport.
The Airport was shut down so there was no air traffic at all.
You could on occasion hear a jet fighter flying around way up in the dark sky.

I won't ever forget.

I was the captain of the last airline flight to take off that morning. We were departing Cody, Wyoming for Salt Lake City. It was a regular run I did every week, so the routine of which other flights were headed into SLC at the same time was known, as well as the sequence of ATC handoffs and navigation expectations such as short cuts and when to expect them.

The airport doesn't have a control tower, and it is a dead spot for radio contact with ATC, so we got our IFR clearance via relay through the flight service station. Because of that, we received the clearance after the airspace had been officially closed. The clearance had a time window from about 10 minutes from receipt but not after 20 minutes from receipt. So our takeoff happened a good 15 or more minutes after the airspace was closed.

We checked on with SLC Center climbing out above 10,000 ft. Weirdness started right away. The frequency was devoid of other flights, when normally there would be easily a dozen others. We were given direct to a fix which normally we wouldn't get until much further along.

We were handed over to SLC Approach control earlier than normal, and cleared direct to the airport, cleared to land! Being cleared direct to the airport never happened like that, and the approach controller never clears an aircraft to land.

Back in those days, ten minutes before landing we would radio our company ops at the destination to find out which gate to park at, and relay information such as wheelchair requests. When we called, they told us to park the airplane and come up to the ops office. They wouldn't tell us what was going on.

Approach told us to monitor tower frequency as we got close to the airport. Tower repeated cleared to land, then cleared us to taxi to the ramp even before we landed.

By then we could see airplanes were crowding all the gates. The FO and I guessed that we must be at war, but had no guesses who the enemy was.

After everyone got off we went up to the ops area and found out 2 aircraft had hit the WTC. There was a small B&W tv with a coat hanger antenna where we watched reruns of it.

The chief pilot came by and told us all to stay in the airport, as we were hoping to be back in the air later in the afternoon.

I walked around the terminals just to observe. Most tvs were on the CNN airport channel which was NOT showing anything about the WTC. Passengers in the gate areas had no idea what was going on. A few restaurants had tvs where they were showing real-time news, with crowds standing in the hallway watching.

When we did get back flying however many days later, there was a lot of craziness and stupidity about new security measures. Top down centralized mandates that were quite disconnected from reality.

Aviation was never the same for flight crew. We became prime suspects every time we went through security screening. We lost almost all freedom at the airport aside from very restricted access. A lot of fun was taken away.

My wife to be and I had plane tickets for 9/14, going to Las Vegas to be married by Elvis. Cancelled all that and drove to Smokey Mountains and said the vows in a Gatlinburg wedding chapel. Be 25 years 9/17.

Was at work in my hospital ER when it happened.
After shift went right to my National Guard Armory as did most of our troops without orders.

It was in a way the National Guard’s finest hour. Two NYC units 1/101 Cav ( based in staten island - they drove 113 APC’s with mounted 50’s on them to Manhattan) the headquarters armory for 1/69 infantry is near the trade center and troops in the armory went right to work immediately providing whatever help possible. Across the country inn a lot of Armories nearly all troops just showed up without orders.
Guys that were low performers or had been known to blow off drill weekends showed up and pitched in !
My unit in Buffalo stood up officially the following day.
NY quickly realized the NYC based units working from day one , probably every member of those units knew someone missing in the rubble, so quickly we thunder runner to NYC to relieve them.I Stayed nearly 2 months, with my little medical aid station set up in battery park.
I could go on with lots of stories of course, but certainly is an aspect of my life I will never forget and always be proud of.

In a twist of fate, that very first unit to respond, 1/69 infantry ( the famous fighting 69th) ended up tapped for deployment to Iraq a couple years later and when their Battalion PA didn’t pass medical screening for deployment, I was assigned and deployed with them.

For some reason this year is hitting me hard, maybe it’s bc of the lead up to the 11th. I find myself at the same anger level, maybe higher if that’s possible.

Vlad III was on the right path.